Different Inter-Organizational Collaboration Approaches in Coworking Spaces in Barcelona

Abstract

Inter-organizational collaboration plays a crucial role in the innovative capacity and competitiveness of firms. This article discusses the collaboration practices in localized spaces of collaboration through a study of different coworking spaces in Barcelona, following an inductive and qualitative approach. Three types of collaboration approaches are identified: 1) cost-related collaboration, where agents are motivated in reducing their operational costs and the transaction costs related to collaboration; 2) resource-based collaboration, where agents collaborate to learn or complement their resources by integrating external resources and sources of knowledge; and 3) relational collaboration, where actors engage in intense synergistic collaborative practices. The results show that each coworking space tends to focus on one kind of collaboration type that is influenced in different ways by the coworking space managers. The article contributes to the research on inter-organizational collaboration by explaining how the physical environment and the action of the space and community managers can facilitate the implementation of different collaborative practices among colocated economic agents.

Keywords: inter-organizational collaboration, coworking spaces, cost-related collaboration, resource-based collaboration, relational collaboration